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Tuesday, Oct 7, 2008
Without the opportunity to choose a flat rate, users here and across much of Europe always feel themselves racing against the clock. Instead of logging on and simply following links that look interesting, I find myself rigorously planning my online experience: I dial up and start several browser windows going at once. I skim the text of each page hurriedly, follow any "must read" links, log off, then read what I have downloaded. A slow download speed is doubly frustrating -- not only does it leave me looking at a blank screen, but I end up drumming my fingers waiting to be able to log off.
Recreational Web surfing has to be squeezed in at off-peak hours, or on office lunch breaks. Only 28 percent of European Net surfers said they had visited entertainment Web sites in a recent survey. Downloading large software demos is much less tempting (which may explain why nearly all computer magazines here contain bonus CD-ROMs full of trial software).
Ziya's experiences bear this out. He is one of the lucky ones: His cable company experimented with free local calls inside its franchise, and he is now one of the DSL trial customers. But his first year of Internet use three years ago was metered, and he remembers being "very aware" of the cost.
His phone bill doubled, and he found himself using the Internet just for specific tasks rather than browsing around -- typically for three or four hours a week. "Quitting the Internet altogether was always in the back of my mind, particularly when I became unemployed," he said.
"Before I had flat-rate access, I wasn't really using the Internet as a communications tool, except for e-mail," he said. "Now I use it primarily to interact with other human beings, whether through gaming, ICQ, IRC or other programs. Before, it was primarily an information-seeking tool."
DSL or cable modems could offer heavier Net users cost savings as well as significantly higher speeds, since they won't usually be billed by the minute. But across much of Europe, including the U.K., the technologies are still at the trial stage.
There is some dispute over whether the U.K. market is ready for such "broadband" services. One cable company exec said that its research found customers were "gagging for" cable modem access, and the 40 customers they offered a test service to in 1997 were "more than a little pissed off" when the trial ended.
British Telecom, which is conducting a 2,000-household DSL trial in London, seems less convinced. Simon Brooks, a marketing manager for the company, says, "If we perceived there was a massive demand now we would roll out very quickly. We believe in two to three years, demand will be much greater. We're not going to be rushed into launching the services earlier than we believe prudent." It looks as if, at least in the U.K., even major metropolitan areas will have to wait until toward the end of this year for any sort of broadband access.
Of course, I have painted a deliberately gloomy picture so far. If you can wait until after 6 p.m., you can get online in Britain for not much more than $1 an hour -- and during the weekend prices decline to as little as 70 cents an hour. Recently in the U.K., several "free" Internet service providers have emerged and are taking a large chunk of the market. Freeserve, the first of them, has quickly become the largest ISP after gaining 700,000 active subscribers in only four months. The company says 40 percent of its customers have never used the Internet before.
The Internet access offered isn't truly free, to be sure. Freeserve and other such services don't charge users fees because they can recoup much of their costs from a share in the phone revenues (though some customers have also voiced alarm at charges of as much as $1.60 a minute for calls to their technical support lines). British ISPs don't limit the number of hours you can spend online anymore; they don't have to -- the telephone companies do that job for them. Thanks to this recent development, those who stay online for less than 10 hours a month are getting a better deal than most North American consumers.
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